Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Shotguns have been used in America's wars since the revolution, only then they were called "fowling pieces." Early units of Confederate cavalry were armed with shotguns and some remained in service until the end of the War Between the States.

A Joint Service Combat Shotgun Program report on the lethality of shotguns in war states, in support of the use of the shotgun in warfare, "the probability of hitting a man-sized target with a shotgun was superior to that of all other weapons", and goes on to support this with statistics compiled by the British from the conflict in Borneo in the 1960s.

The buckshot typically used in a combat shotgun spreads out to a greater or lesser degree depending on the barrel choke, and can be effective at ranges as far as 70 m (75 yards). The delivery of the large number of projectiles simultaneously makes the shotgun the most effective short range weapon commonly used, with a hit probability 45% greater than a submachine gun, and twice as great as an assault rifle. While each pellet is only as effective as a small caliber handgun, and offers very poor penetration against an armored target, the multiple projectiles increases the likelihood of one or more peripheral wounds.

They continue in service today, especially popular for breaching doors.

A Mossberg 590 being used by a US Marine for door breaching in Karma, Iraq, in 2005.

They have always been the guerrilla's "butter knife gun" of necessity:

Due to the widespread use of the shotgun as a sporting firearm, it is used in guerilla warfare and other forms of asymmetric warfare. Che Guevara, in his 1961 book Guerrilla Warfare, notes that shotgun ammunition can be obtained by guerrillas even in times of war, and that shotguns loaded with heavy shot are highly effective against unarmored troop transport vehicles. He recommends that suburban guerrilla bands should be armed with easily concealable weapons, such as handguns and a sawed-off shotgun or carbine. Guevara also mentions an improvised weapon developed by guerrillas consisting of a sawed-off 16 gauge shotgun provided with a bipod to hold the barrel at a 45 degree angle. Called the "M-16", this was loaded with a blank cartridge formed by removing the shot from a standard shotshell. A wooden rod was then placed in the barrel, with a Molotov cocktail attached to the front. This formed an improvised mortar capable of firing the incendiary device accurately out to a range of 100 meters. -- Wikipedia.

While I have seen an inert grenade projected off of a twelve gauge using the Guevara method, I don't think I'd want to try that molotov cocktail thing. I used to work in a burn unit for a mercifully short period of time in the '70s.

But since shotguns are so ubiquitous, it makes sense to try to maximize their capabilities. In the 90s, I tried to popularize flechette rounds for 12 gauge "jack booted thug door greeter" purposes, the theory being that tungsten-steel flechettes could penetrate the ATF raid party vests then in use.

A reader, in response to my post on flash-bangs yesterday, forwarded a link to what he called "the poor man's flash-bang," which got me thinking again on the whole combat shotgun theme.

This is the ALS Technologies 1208 "Bore Thunder (Muzzle Bang)."

ALS bills this as a "low cost highly effective device (which) produces a stun/diversion effect by using a flash with an extremely powerful concussion blast from a 12 gauge shotgun muzzle."

ALS makes a number of useful cartridges for the twelve gauge, including the ALS1209Aerial Pest Control (Delayed Bang). This is what is lnown in the vernacular as a "bird bomb." The ALS product description: "This low cost highly effective device produces a diversion effect by using German engineered pyrotechnics 75-200 feet from firing point. . . The Aerial Pest Control was developed as a diversion, animal control and personnel control device for use in a variety of applications."

The ALS 1209 "bird bomb."

Also made by ALS, the ALS1210S Door Breaching Cartridge.

Ever since the advent of modern 12 Gauge cartridges loaded with deer slugs, cops have been blowing the hinges off of doors with them. Modern door breaching rounds are designed to blow off the hinge but dissipate their projectile so innocents within the room are not hurt.

From the ALS product description:

This low cost, highly effective device is a frangible projectile made of powdered copper and tin pressed into a single projectile. The door breaching cartridge produces an effective means of removing locks and hinges from metal or wooden doors constructed of materials up to 16 gauge steel. Limited projection of hazardous debris and collateral damage on the opposite side of the door is minimized. . . The Door Breacher was developed to provide an alternative to the battering ram and limit exposure to shots fired from within areas upon entry.

The combat shotgun remains a useful tool of war. There are tens upon tens of millions of shotguns in the hands of the armed citizenry. It only makes sense to use what you have and optimize performance by using specialty ammunition.

Thank You Mike for taking notice about the Bird Bomb. And I´ll look into getting a couple of the real flash bang cartridges,both can be useful. I have the utmost respect for the shotgun as anyone who ever looked down the barrel of one Will Have. I am alive today only because of someone else's piss poor maintenance of a shotgun that they had pointed at me and then pulled the trigger with every intent of finishing my existence in this world. My advice to any owners of any brand of shotgun that has a screw on Magazine Tube(aka Winchester 1200 and some Mossburgs)is to take off the cap, clean it and the tube and then screw it back on with lock tight. The other guy failed to do that Thank God and I am still alive today. Sold that shotgun years ago after the previous owner didn´t need said shotgun any longer.

And thanks for that WBTS photo, Mike. I am intimately familiar with it. I have forebears from TX who served in the CSA, 9th Texas Cavalry. Those cavalrymen were known to carry short-barreled shotguns, Bowie D knives, and maybe a revolver. The Confederate grey uniform indicates that the photo was taken later in the war, as initially those Texas Confederate cowboys wore civilian clothes.

Why buy a use 870 for $200and send it anywhere most of the alterations are simple to make add extended magazine tube and WA-la you now have a assua..er defensive shotgun or just spend $459 and buy a Remington 870 tactical. Most of the cartridges are at ammunitiontogo.com a little ol´ supplier from Texas

There's two articles of good info on slugs and brenekes over at gunwriters.fi

So long as you have a cylinder barrel gun. bird cartridges can be adapted by cutting the end off, tipping the shot out and inserting a ball into the plas wad, then putting a strip of sticky tape over the end to hold it in. the ball is lighter than the shot load and will typically go through an 8" pine post at 10 yards.

above, helps in areas where slugs are regulated or banned.

A good muzzle loader with patched ball and double charge of black powder will put it through 1/8th inch steel plate. excellent seamless ("chrome")tube offcuts are available from places doing hydraulic rams if anyone fancies making a big bore.

re guy in UK:The cops are bloody lucky it is a screwed up steroid fed bouncer from the town, not a fit sinewy country guy who understands how to cut wheel weights up to make buck shot, and knows fieldcraft and stalking.

Sectional density of pellets is low, as is the same for slugs. I'll still take a rifle. At close ranges where you have to aim a shotgun, a rifle bullet will penetrate much better unless you're shooting round balls from a musket, at long ranges you are at a distinct disadvantage. There's a reason people don't carry shotguns around DG, be it Lions or Humans.

They have their usages, but they are a special purpose weapon unless you are bird hunting or prohibited by law from using a rifle. Rifle will ALWAYS be Queen.

When both shotguns and rifled muzzle-loaders shot round balls, there could be an argument more in favor of shotties. With modern projectiles, not so much except for special purposes. Sectional density is highly important in wounding and killing and pellets and slugs are on the loser side of that equation.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.